Whether you're looking for something, or seeking a catchy phrase to mark your location, or you're just messing around, there is potential for fun, abuse... and profit. W3W is selling the right to choose your own three words, or one word, to mark the location of your choice. In the meantime, what do your free three words say about your location?

Like, what is the use case for spending money on this, on a scale large enough to help anyone?posted by Lemurrhea at 7:12 PM on July 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

It certainly is different. But arguing that using three words is better is just silly. For one thing, you can't just say "meet me at some.place.here" over the phone like they use as an example, without also telling the recipient the web address they will need to look up to find out what place you are talking about, and that would just piss me off as recipient of the call. A street address can be used from any mobile device these days, from a computer, from a car GPS... I cannot think of a single use case in which forcing people to their website is a better option, or a less confusing option, than using the address. Even if you are meeting at a non-addressed location, GPS coordinates work fine on their own, without the need for computer access.

That said, I can definitely see the reason behind the site, which is to offer yet another way for people to pay for their vanity now that all the easy URLs are taken.posted by caution live frogs at 7:18 PM on July 18, 2013 [8 favorites]

One thing I can think of is this might be a fun way to remember Geocaches. For example, I happen to know there's one at dumped.mission.wisely.posted by The otter lady at 7:21 PM on July 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

I live by a place called "Tower Hill Park". What do you think the three words are? "cubs.rooted.ducks"

This is the dumbest thing I've seen in a while, and given I spent all day at a senior leadership retreat for my organization, that's really saying something.posted by TheShadowKnows at 7:22 PM on July 18, 2013 [23 favorites]

Now, I don't like to mock new tech, because it makes you sound like an epic idiot if the stuff ever takes off, but I don't have high hopes for this. It's not sticky. Unlike the old telephone exchanges, there's nothing catchy about it, nor could you figure it out on your own account. If people ever buy stickers or shirts advertising their residence in newest.froth.glass, I will eat my hat.posted by Countess Elena at 7:34 PM on July 18, 2013

I remember saying on LiveJournal that neither Twitter nor Tumblr would take off because they seemed frivolous.

If I mention this site on LiveJournal, do I guarantee its success? I don't think I'll mention it on LiveJournal.

Sadly, no Monkey Fighting Cowgirls, but there is a Star Spangled Banana. In England.posted by jenkinsEar at 7:42 PM on July 18, 2013

I typed in my zip code instead of the name of my city+state, and got blob.jolly.fumes.posted by Redfield at 7:45 PM on July 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

The thing I like too is that each 2-meter area has its own code. So if you don't like the code that marks part of your house, you can move it along slightly and find something more catchy. So if handle.second.fall isn't your thing, maybe you'd prefer sells.codes.stack.posted by The otter lady at 7:46 PM on July 18, 2013

The degree of resolution seems awfully high. I had three different sets in my yard alone. And why not two words? A word for parallel "longitudinal" (so they run north-south but don't converge at the poles) lines about 30 feet apart and another for each a set of latitudinal lines also about 30 feet apart.posted by sourwookie at 7:48 PM on July 18, 2013

It seems like it would be better if the first word described an area, the second one described a subdivision of that and the third subdivided that. That way, if you were looking for wiggle.tickle.chicken and you were at wiggle.tickle.change, you'd know that you were close.

I'm not sure how I feel about them selling one-word location markers for a yearly fee, a la domain names. I guess that's cool since they're cheap ($1.50/year), but... yeah.posted by floomp at 8:00 PM on July 18, 2013

It's really dumb. As double block and bleed says it needs to have domain/subdomain/machine or region/municipality/location structure, or it's completely pointless.posted by unSane at 8:06 PM on July 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

I'm trying to think of a good thing to say about this and it's making my head hurt.posted by hydrophonic at 8:08 PM on July 18, 2013

I don't know if this has any actual biz value in 2013, but I do think the contrast between identifying things by name/concept vs. identifying them numerically is really interesting.

Like with the numbers, you get a lot more information about the thing's place in relation to other things... I know that 123 4th St is probably closer to 256 4th St than to 750 4th St. Or that 4th St is probably near 5th St. And it might basically tell me how to get there, if I live in a grid-city (which I do). Stuff like that. BUT if I misremember 256 4th St as 254 6th St, I'm kind of SOL.

Whereas if I live at Bag End on Bagshot Row in Hobbiton, I'll probably still be able to effectively communicate about it even if I do misremember it as Sack End or Bigshot Row or whatever, but I'd have no clue just off the name alone if that's closer to Bree or Mordor, nor how to get there. Guess that's why you need to be told how to get to Sesame St.

It's like efficiency vs robustness, and as humans I feel we tend to do things in redundant ways in general (natural language, bodily functions, societal roles) whereas so many of the artifacts of modern technology we're producing rely on efficiency (currency, bar codes, IP addresses). Not sure what that means, other than I still have a hard time dictating my phone number cause I tend to switch up the digits.

I like that (at least in the U.S. and the other Western countries I've lived in) our current system for locating buildings and other locations is a nice mix of both, and either one gets you approximately there. Like Pennsylvania Av, Washington, DC narrows things down quite a bit, but so does 20500, and if you totally botch up either of them you won't be totally left with nothing.posted by DLWM at 8:29 PM on July 18, 2013 [2 favorites]

Trying to figure out what this service offers that no other mapping service already offers...

quirky names for places that already have names. Which is new and interesting. It might help some people who have difficulty memorizing street names, numbers, zip codes and the like, and as previously mentioned it's a fun way to memorized geocache sites.

I could have used this kind of system when trying to find people's addresses in Japan, but now I live in a grid based city, so I can pretty much figure out how to get anywhere when given the street numbers, and address number.posted by PipRuss at 8:34 PM on July 18, 2013

This is totally dumb and totally awesome. (The attempt to sell "OneWords" is pretty laughable, though...bridge, Brooklyn, etc.)posted by threeants at 8:39 PM on July 18, 2013

"Whereas if I live at Bag End on Bagshot Row in Hobbiton, I'll probably still be able to effectively communicate about it even if I do misremember it as Sack End or Bigshot Row or whatever, but I'd have no clue just off the name alone if that's closer to Bree or Mordor, nor how to get there. Guess that's why you need to be told how to get to Sesame St.."

If you are ever lost in a gridded midwestern city, the streets are often named in groups. Downtown you will typically find Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, in order; you'll find residential streets just outside the downtown named after states, often in geographical groupings (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania); groups of Great Lakes (Ontario, Erie, Superior, Huron); trees (Ash, Elm, Myrtle, Apple) and so on. Of course they'll also be randomly distributed among names of founding citizens and granddaughters of housing developers and whatnot, but if you're in the downtown of a midwestern city and you stumble across a street named after a president, you'll probably find five more right in a row.posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:55 PM on July 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

I find this very interesting. Sadly, people still communicate by speaking fairly often, we are kinda optimized for it. If I'm on the phone with someone and they can tell me where to go with three words over the phone and my device could pick them up, or I could enter a destination into my phone this way it could be very cool.posted by Ad hominem at 8:58 PM on July 18, 2013

So this reminds me a lot of Amazon PayPhrase, except we already have pretty well established systems for naming locations and conveying geographical knowledge to one another. Of course, Amazon shut down PayPhrase last year after discovering that nobody used it, so that doesn't bode well.

I guess I could see this as useful in some parts of the world without coherent place naming schemes. Three English words (if you happen to know English, and many people who live in such places do not) is a lot simpler than having to draw a map to explain how to find your house. It's probably better for such places to develop their own addressing schemes though.posted by zachlipton at 9:05 PM on July 18, 2013

I see the usefulness, sort of. It's an address. It is easy to memorise and it works for any location on the planet. Cool. But I won't use this.

For one, the algorithm should be public and open source so that this will be indefinitely useful. Right now, this is some for-profit dot-com that will, in all statistical likelihood disappear. So much for your custom printed business cards with your OneWord(tm) address.

Then, the mapping is illogical. Getting one word of the three wrong sends you across the planet. Perhaps this was intentional?

Finally, yes, it is in English. So, telling my guests how to find my bungalows in Thailand is useful as long as I don't also have to carefully spell out the English words on the phone. Better to just give them two numbers called Latitude and Longitude which work on Google maps, GPS, etc. and will still be correct 10 years from now.posted by vacapinta at 12:33 AM on July 19, 2013

York (UK) gives me tows.puts.grapes, which happen to be three words that Northern Englanders can say about 15 different ways apiece. So that's fun and useful.posted by iamkimiam at 1:11 AM on July 19, 2013

Oh this is fun. I've just finished moving out, so I don't mind telling you that I lived in denoting.dabbled.craters (though my bedroom was nearly.welcome.foreheads), and I spent a good bit of time at the local bar thundered.treat.ears.posted by solotoro at 3:09 AM on July 19, 2013

Ok, I'm just annoyed that they offer both a US EN and a UK EN version of the site and they can't be assed/arsed to changed the metres to meters and wilst to while.posted by drlith at 3:39 AM on July 19, 2013

Now if only someone could come up with a way of converting the pesky digits of internet time to words...posted by Hogshead at 5:26 AM on July 19, 2013

Look, I'm not saying this thing is creepy at all, but I just checked the front yard of our old house and it gave me back 'wants.insertion.landlady'. When I shifted onto the house to about where our master bedroom was, I got back 'shimmering.poke.tent' so I think I'm done with this for now.

There are dozens of what.three.word for my front yard. I guess I'll have to buy them all to prevent cyberbullies from labeling my front yard with something offensive.posted by surplus at 5:45 AM on July 19, 2013

toxic.truth.silver - Red Gate Woods, where Chicago Piles 2 and 3 are buried in the worlds only public park / nuclear waste dump.posted by MikeWarot at 5:56 AM on July 19, 2013

Almost an interesting attempt to collect rent of some sort (tl;dr the website to see how they want to make money off this) on a resource they can't even make artificially scarce. Seems like the product of a mildly tech-savvy marketing geek getting high and suddenly realizing that numbers can also be pointers into lists of arbitrary things, like omg.

But looking for Freudian truth in the map (which is easy, because every locality seems to have a few hundred of these strings) seems to be a fun game. So you kids have a great time on my lawn.posted by Vetinari at 6:01 AM on July 19, 2013

Might be marginally useful as a band name generator.posted by Philofacts at 6:22 AM on July 19, 2013

They took bases, and changed them to numbers to words, and then used them to define coordinates.

PipRuss: "quirky names for places that already have names. Which is new and interesting. It might help some people who have difficulty memorizing street names, numbers, zip codes and the like,"

I have a hard time memorizing street names, numbers, zip codes and the like. The idea of finding things via a new quirky naming scheme with no context sounds like something out of a nightmare.posted by desuetude at 7:10 AM on July 19, 2013

If you search for Toronto it drops a marker at City Hall and names it "weekday.jogging.helps," which is kind of funny.

I centred the arrow over what should be Rob Ford's office, and found he -- who has insisted the video of him smoking a crack pipe pipe is a fake -- works at examiner.scam.photos; however, that was using the map. Using the aerial view, he looks to be more at bulges.prompt.circles, which could refer to any number of things.posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:20 AM on July 19, 2013

And a quick survey of Dealey Plaza in Dallas suggests that President Kennedy was shot at talked.bright.memory, which seems culturally apropos in several ways.posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:31 AM on July 19, 2013

My house is leave.this.goats

Maybe because I need to mow the lawn?posted by maurice at 8:49 AM on July 19, 2013

what 3 words am i supposed to search for ...?posted by mrgrimm at 9:04 AM on July 19, 2013

Yeah, this is just really not useful in its current form. I get what they are aiming at by trying to replace numbers with words to make locations more conversationally usable, but numbers work for a reason. They are systematic, if you know how to get to 123 Sesame St. you know how to get to 124, 223, or 666 Sesame St. Numbers in addresses are useful because there is a system to it.

In order for this to have any utility at all it needs to be systematic as well, knowing where sesame.oscar.garbagecan is should give you insight into where sesame.oscar.pancakes is.

The system as is just feels like 3 random words. First off, it is a coordinate system, so it isn't really great for addresses or area code style locating, it's more akin to latitude/longitude. The commenters suggesting it could be used for geocaching seem right on, this really is the best use case scenario I can see for this. So let's take a page from lat/long's book and use two word coordinates instead of three, maybe an adjective for latitude and a noun for longitude. That way locations sound like "I live at stinky.cheese" or "Meet me at grumpy.suitcase." The words also need to be sorted in some way. Perhaps alphabetically could work, with A words starting at the north pole and Z words at the equator or south pole. This way when you see dangerous.grandpa you know that dangly.grass is in the neighborhood.

I mean seriously, as far as creating global locating schemes go this is really just amateur hour work here.posted by cirrostratus at 9:11 AM on July 19, 2013

This has got to be the dumbest internet idea I’ve ever seen. So much so that I don’t believe it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a joke or a con of some sort, but more likely some sort of study.posted by bongo_x at 9:14 AM on July 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

sesame.oscar.garbagecan is should give you insight into where sesame.oscar.pancakes

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